A New Year’s Resolution of “Shoulds” and “Shouldn’ts”
I live with my “should”
I ought to be slim and healthy
Flexible and fit
And not this fat, lazy git.
I should be a big success at work
Money in the bank
My life partner at my side
Holding hands as we walk together into the sunset
I shouldn’t be this
Struggling alone
Working hard to pay on time
A house unpaid for
Oh, please don’t go under
No golden-years retirement for me.
Insecure and alone
Vulnerable and lost
I live with this not-good-enough
And a future of, “Someone help me, please.”
So I should and I shouldn’t
I should be happy,
But only all of the time
My life should be fulfilled
With meaning and satisfaction.
I live with my “shoulds” inside of me
Knowing that I’ve never been what I should be
I live with all of my “shouldn’ts”
Those whiskey-filled Netflix nights
Alone.
I try to do what I should
And not what I shouldn’t
But here I am doing what I shouldn’t
And realizing that it’s not what I should.
The guilty failure that I am
Hidden away from sight
Out of the darkness, I step
Pretending I am alright.
I’m trapped in my world of “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts”
A slave to it all
God is my “should”
And I am never that.
So I allow myself to be with my “shouldn’ts.”
Those feelings of inadequacy, despair and despondency
The failure and disappointment of me
I am all that I shouldn’t be.
I feel inside my unsettled, disturbed stomach
That irritation within myself
It’s just a feeling in my gut
But I don’t like it, oh f*ck.
So my “should” is a physical experience
An emotion living inside of me
An unpleasant discomfort
A harmless feeling felt within
And that’s all it is.
My thoughts of should and shouldn’t
Cannot harm me
But my mind notices those feelings
And figures out what it must do
To make it all alright for me.
Do this and don’t do that.
All the “shoulds,” you know
And you know what you shouldn’t
Should and shouldn’t, shouldn’t and should.
Should, should, should.
Shouldn’t, shouldn’t, shouldn’t.
Should, shouldn’t.
Should, should, shouldn’t.
Did the feeling create the thought,
Or was it the other way around?
A thought-created feeling
Or do they co-create and exist together?
My mind thinks that to make those feelings go away
All I have to do
Is do this and not that
Be what I should be,
And not what I shouldn’t.
So my innocent mind is wanting
Those feelings to disappear
For me to not be here, but to be there
Somewhere another version of me should be.
So I make big plans
To change my “shouldn’ts” into “shoulds”
As I think I can make it all better
No more “shouldn’ts” for me
In my new should-filled life.
Can I be with this feeling
Of not-good-enough
Alongside all those “should” thoughts
Conjured up at will?
This is a time of, “I should be in activity,”
But I allow myself to be just as I am
Free to be with all of my “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts”
As I sit in my inactivity.
Now, what should and shouldn’t I do?
I should do nothing and something accordingly, of course
And make sure I don’t do something that I shouldn’t
Or is it what I should?
Just thoughts and feelings arising, as usual.
All allowed to be
Coming and going or staying
It doesn’t matter to me.
So, I am here with my “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts”
The feeling inside is so alive
A feeling of not wanting what is here right now,
But that is alright with me.
For this is me being all of what there is of me.
Being with all I can be.
And all that I am
Successfully.
Now Is the Moment Is Now
This is the moment
This is it.
It is now.
Now.
There is no moment-to-moment
There never was any time
There was no beginning
And of course, there will be no end.
You were never here
Yet here you are
You were always here
But not as you are.
Thoughts are not you
And you are not thought
Thought thinks it is a “me,”
So it thinks.
Your physical body will die
Along with your emotional system
The heart will stop beating
And the brain will no longer think.
No more thoughts
No more emotions
No more comparing
No more feeling this and feeling that
No more future and no more past
It’ll be just like now.
What will be left?
What was here before you were born?
And after you are dead,
What will be here then?
That, my friend, is who you are.
Now you are alive
A thinking identity
But thinking will die
And when it does
You’ll never think,
“Oh, I am dead.”
So your thinking mind will never know death
Death will never be experienced by a “you”
A “you” that exists only in thought
You will never know death,
The great unknown that doesn’t exist.
There is no “you”
And there is no death
Both exist only in your mind
Just thought believing its thoughts.
Without thought
Who would you be?
A someone who doesn’t think about life or death
A someone without a “me” identity.
This moment, the now, was here
In the time of the dinosaurs
And it’ll be here when humankind is no more
This moment was never born
And it’ll never die.
This very moment is always here
You were born in this same moment
And you will die in it
In the same way, now, as when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
You are always within this moment
As there is no more than this
And there will never be another
That isn’t this one.
There is only one moment
You are a part of it
It’s where you are, right now
And it’s who you are, always.
It’s not possible to live moment-to-moment
Because there aren’t two
We pass through the time of our lives
As we stay in the now
And the now is this moment.
The moment is bigger than everything
Because everything is within the moment
You are a little piece of existence
Living within this eternal, timeless moment.
This is a moment
That you can’t step outside of
Or get away from
For there is nowhere else to go
And nothing else to be.
This moment is eternal
There was nothing before
And there is nothing to follow
This is the moment
And that’s all there is.
The moment will live on
For it was never born
And cannot die
And that is who you are.
You are nothing more
Or nothing less
Than this moment
Because there is no more
And there is no less.
The moment
This moment
Is “The Moment”
Now is the moment
And the moment is now.
«RELATED READ» POEMS BY GEORGE PAYNE: You Call Me Animal, Father’s Breakfast and more»
image: Pixabay
